


Ask the Impertinent Question

by sybarite1



Series: Imperative [4]
Category: Fake News RPF, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (TV)
Genre: Dialogue, Gen, Humor, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybarite1/pseuds/sybarite1
Summary: America, Jon and Stephen aren't mad at you, they're just really disappointed.





	1. Fiddling

**Author's Note:**

> This continues from previous story [A Thought Exercise by BuzzFeed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10349244)
> 
> Title from a President Jed Barlet quote in S02E07 _The Portland Trip_ of The West Wing

 

 

When Jon comes by the offices everything is even keeled.  Far too evenly keeled for a show taping that afternoon.  Stephen fancies he can actually see the edge of disconcertion in Jon’s eyes as he casts a look across the placid writing room, where everyone is absorbed in their own notes.  It’s the look of a mildly alarmed executive producer.

“Relax Jon.”

“It’s so quiet.  Why is it so quiet?  Did you have a fight?  All of you, somehow?”

“No one had a fight, although I suppose it’s not too late now that you’re here.”  Stephen narrows his eyes like a TV professional who knows when he’s being comically menacing.

Jon holds his hands up in surrender.  “Woah.  I come in peace.”

“Hmm.”  Stephen lets him off the hook.

“But seriously.”

Stephen sighs.

“We’re just arranging material.  We have a lot of material.  We have so much material there’s enough for a web extra.  Again.”

“You’ve got the jokes.”

“We’ve got the jokes.  Some might even say an excess of jokes.  Some of these jokes won’t even make the cut and they’re all good jokes, Jon.  But by tomorrow we’ll have new jokes and some of today’s won’t even see the light of day.”  
  
“Or the light of late night television.”

“Potato, tomato.”

They step out of the writing room and head towards Stephen’s office. 

“Hey, you could give some of the leftovers to Fallon?”

“Jon.”  Stephen’s voice carries a warning but admittedly his lips are twitching.

“What?  You Catholics are big into the charity.  I’m just saying, maybe you could help out.”  Jon’s expression is a testament to how bad he is at playing innocent.

“ _Jon._ ” Stephen says, more quelling this time.

Jon face breaks with a riotous grin.  “Nine weeks on top baby!  I get to boast about ratings!  I’m an executive producer and the boasting is my job so that you, the talent, can avoid it and, you know, stay humble.”

“I’m an executive producer too.” Stephen reminds him, stepping into his office and shutting the door.

“Oh right.  I’m sorry.  Boast with me.”

“No.”

“A little bit?  A little boast?”  
  
“It _is_ pretty neat.”  Stephen concedes, sitting on the front of his desk.  Jon takes one of the chairs in front of him. 

“See?  That wasn’t so bad.  You’ve all worked really hard.  You deserve to be proud.”

Stephen smiles.  “Say that to the rest of the team when you head out, would you?”

“Yeah of course.”

“So, what brings you by?”

“Eh, nothing much.  Just came to see how you were ticking over.  You know, since you don’t call, you don’t write-”

“I don’t bring you flowers?” Stephen finishes.

“Hey, if the Streisand song fits, my friend…”

“It’s a fulltime job keeping up with Washington.”

“And you’re knocking it out of the park.”

“Seth too.”  Stephen points out.  _A Closer Look_ has been on point.

“Yeah, he’s doing good work.”

“It should be like that-”

“I know.”  Says Jon, so Stephen leaves _“-on The Daily Show”_ left unsaid.  It’s clear from the set of Jon’s mouth that he hears it anyway.  Jon’s shoulders are rounded, pulling into himself.  He looks tired.

“You ok?”  Stephen asks.

“If Jake Tapper gets any sassier, we’re all gonna be out of work.”  It’s a weak joke but there’s an underlying truth that seems to be eating at Jon.  The mainstream news media used to be exasperating because of how facts were presented.  Now the facts themselves are a new level of ridiculous.  It’s putting CNN in the comedy business.

He looks up at Stephen and asks a patently unfair question:

“You ever feel like we’re fiddling while Rome burns?”

Stephen sighs.

“Neither of us are even close to emperors, Jon.”

“So… more like the band on the Titanic then?”

“Yeah,” he agrees glumly, “more like that.”

 

* * *

 

tbc

 


	2. Resistance is Female

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solidarity starts at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love everyone's input on a story question I've left in the End Notes. Please check it out and hit me up if you've got any thoughts.
> 
> Chapter title is a byline that's being used in relation to gendered anti-Trump campaigning.
> 
> Jon paraphrases a Margaret Thatcher quote: “In politics, if you want anything said ask a man, if you want anything done ask a woman.”
> 
> Personal observation but Stephen seems fairly food-focussed.
> 
> Friendly reminder that this is all fiction. I'm pretty uncomfortable writing people's non-famous spouses and children into things. I do try damned hard to be respectful about it but if I slip up, please let me know.

 

 

“I miss Harry Potter.”

“Hi, Jon.  How are ya, Jon?  Have a good Passover, Jon?”  Jon waits. 

“Seriously,” says Stephen as though Jon hasn’t spoken, “I really miss him.”

“I think there are like, a million fanfictions that can help you with that problem, you rude person.”

“You like it when I’m rude.  I’m pretty sure you told me that, one time.”  
  
“I like it when you’re _selfish_ ,” corrects Jon, “hardly the same thing.  And I’m fairly sure that discussion doesn’t apply to ill-mannered calls about British boy wizards.”

Stephen caves.  “ _Did_ you have a good Passover?”

“Well now I don’t feel like talking about it.”  Jon sniffs.

“C’mon honey, don’t be like that.”

“You’re the one who’s taking my love for granted.”  Jon is particularly proud of how his voice breaks on the last word.  “And don’t call me honey.”

In Jon’s den, his daughter pauses her Lego Batman game to shoot him a deeply questioning look as he walks by. 

_STEPHEN_ he mouths at her, getting an eyeroll.  Batman promptly resumes his quest, apparently unconcerned about Jon’s fidelity.  Jon feels slighted but isn’t entirely sure why.  Girls, he’s found, can be just as confusing as women.  Delightful, but confusing.  Like a maze made of cake.

While Jon ponders the mysteries of emasculation by ten-year-old, Stephen leaves his rambling apology to enumerate all the things he loves about Jon.  His emotional delivery seems only to be a list of all the times Jon brought him food, or bought him food, or shared his own food.  There’s a theme emerging, is the point.

Jon waits several long moments to see how far back Stephen’s memory for food favours stretches but the answer appears to be _worryingly far back_ , so he interrupts somewhere in the alleged donut courtship of 1999, mostly because Stephen is freaking him out. 

“So Harry Potter huh?”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to keep going?”  Stephen’s grin is audible.

“No, you’re making me hungry.  I’m literally in my kitchen right now.  I think I walked here in a fugue state.”  Jon opens the refrigerator and liberates a vegan ‘yoghurt.’  It’s a long way from courtship donuts, that’s for sure.  He puts Stephen on speaker phone and sits at the kitchen island alone with his spoon and his banana not-yoghurt.

“Because I can keep going if you like.  If you still doubt my love, Jon.”  Yeah, it’s definitely a smug grin, too.  Jon can hear it in the shape of his words.

“This right here?  This is the sort of thing that makes nice people think you’re an alien.”

“Louis C.K. is one guy.  One guy that thought I was an alien.”  
  
“Um.”

“ ** _More than one guy thought I was an alien???_** ”

Jon personally thinks Stephen’s use of past tense is optimistic but he leaves it alone for now.  “To be fair there were some who went with _human from a failed ‘how to be human’ re-education experiment._ ”

There is silence down the line.  Jon imagines it is pained.  He smirks around his spoon.  
  
“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Harry Potter?”  Jon offers.

“Right,” rallies Stephen, “I miss him.  Mostly I miss talking about him at the dinner table.  Used to be all our conversations were about the house system at Hogwarts or the use of intention in magic.”

“And now they’re all grown up and don’t want to talk about Harry Potter?” Jon hazards.  He has no idea where this is going.  
  
“Worse.” Says Stephen.  “Now they’re all grown up and want to talk about _politics_.  Some of it is even _girl politics.”_

“I think they call it women’s rights these days.”

“I see the suffragette movement has sunk its pointy claws into you too.” 

Jon huffs a laugh.

“I was their ages once, Jon, and I certainly didn’t care about politics.”  Stephen pauses, “unless it involved an elven council of some kind,” he concedes.

“Kids these days huh?  You know, I read an article about the socio-political effects of menstruation the other day.”

“You’re a good dad Jon.  Also, you can’t see it, but I’m shuddering.” Stephen assures him.

“I could send it to you.”  
  
“No, I’m content with being an uninformed dad, thanks.  I’ve been at it so long it would be a shame to give up now.”

“If it’s any consolation I think it’s their job to make us feel out of depth.”  
  
“Tell that to my Gryffindor scarf.”

“You seem disproportionately upset about this.”  
  
“Well, much as I hate to admit it, they got me thinking.”

“Uh oh.”

“Exactly!” Laughs Stephen, like he knows just how much trouble he is.

“We were talking about how many women voted for Hillary, especially women of colour.  And about how 86% of all anti-Trump administration calls being placed to congress now are being made by women.”

“Uh huh?”

“And how women are under-represented in public office but still disproportionately affected by certain policy decisions.”

“Well, it certainly sounds like you have college kids at the dinner table.”  Jon is still not sure where Stephen is going with this.

“Maddie asked me something.  She said… she said _why does it so often feel like politics is just another bad thing that men do to women?_ She’s a privileged young woman Jon, she knows she has agency.  And she watched her aunt run for office, she’s helped her mom organise big money and people and events, she’s had eight years of Michelle Obama.  But she still needed to ask this question.  Because us men keep fucking things up and leaving them to deal with the fallout.  They mobilise because they don’t have a choice – it’s that or be trampled.”

“If you want something said ask a man, if you want something done ask a woman.”  Jon mutters, mostly to himself.

“Yup.  I mean, we talk a good game but us dudes, us regular white _‘progressive’_ dudes, we can just opt out of the grunt work whenever _we_ want.  Because even when Cheeto Voldemort is in charge, life for us still ticks on by pretty much the same as before.  Maddie wasn’t even angry about it.  She’s barely outgrown Harry Potter and all she seemed was resigned.” 

Stephen sounds horrified.  Jon listens to the muted adventures of Lego Batman from the den and thinks about Maggie asking him that question one day.  _Another bad thing that men do to women_.  Jesus.

“What did you tell her?” Jon asks.

“Nothing.  I had nothing _to_ tell her.  I just listened to her and tried not to make a mental list of all the times I should have done more but didn’t bother.”

“Compared to most guys you do a lot,” Jon protests.  He means **_we_** _do a lot_ and he knows that Stephen hears it.

“That’s true.”

“But?”

“Are we supposed to be comparing ourselves to the average guy?  Is it fair when we have more money and connections and influence than almost all guys?  At what point do we earn the right to decide we’ve done enough while our daughters are coming home tired from the same damned fight?”

“These are not fun questions.”  
  
“Tell me about it.”

“I mean, I was having a nice weekend.”

“If I’ve inconvenienced _you_ just think about how women must feel.”

“I don’t want to.”  Jon says petulantly.

“But?” Stephen throws his own prompt back at him.

“But we should.”

“Because?”

“Becauseit’stherightthingtodo.” Jon mumbles.

“And because we love them,” says Stephen, in that gentle and horrifyingly honest way he gets sometimes.

Jon sighs.  “Yeah.  We really do.  So what do you want to do?”

“Maybe we dust off those hypotheticals we shelved during the ratings hike?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m pretty serious about being able to look my daughter in the eye.  How about you?”

“You know I’m in,” says Jon, “I’ve just been waiting for you.”

“Well.”  There’s an audible swallow.  Jon knows what stage fright sounds like.  “Well, I’m saying ok.”  Stephen finally manages.

Jon exhales shakily.  This is big, this is potentially life-changing.  Like most life-changing moments, things are completely mundane except for the feeling clawing its way through him.  His mouth is dry, everything tastes like banana and beyond the rushing of blood in his ears he can distantly hear Batman.  This is real.

“I’m proud of you.”  Jon croaks.

“I haven’t done anything yet…” says Stephen, baffled.  He can’t see whatever Jon’s face must look like right now or feel the sudden tightness in his chest.

“That’s what you think, buddy,” quips Jon.  “For a smart man, you’re pretty dumb sometimes.”

“Can we go back to before when you were complimenting me?”

“Moment’s passed,” says Jon, lying through his teeth.  “It’s time to go to work.”

 

* * *

 

tbc

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: I'm stuck on the issue of Stephen's running mate. I was interested in House Rep Tulsi Gabbard but she's very recently made some worrying statements about Assad which have nixed that idea and thrown my planning into disarray. Also, her speaking style is not terribly compelling to write. She was, however, perfectly age-and-politically placed. Now I need to find another potential running mate who is preferably a woc, politically active but not politically entrenched and sharp-tongued. PLEASE let me know if you have any ideas?
> 
> What is and isn't real:
> 
> Back in the 90s [Louis C.K. really did think Stephen was an alien](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGKCjw7O_ZM).
> 
> 2016 [women voter demographic stats](https://qz.com/833003/election-2016-all-women-voted-overwhelmingly-for-clinton-except-the-white-ones/).
> 
> [Women calling congress](https://www.themarysue.com/women-86-percent-resist-trump/).
> 
> Maddie's trailblazing [aunt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Colbert_Busch).
> 
> [Cheeto Voldemort](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cheeto+voldemort) really is a Trump nickname.  You can even get a [Chrome Extension](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cheeto-voldemort/dgmjkhcljhmmlillfpcdcapiikokggog) that changes all mention of Trump to Cheeto Voldemort.  What a time to be alive.

**Author's Note:**

> What is and isn't real: 
> 
> By the week of March 27th 2017, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has spent [nine weeks](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-colbert-nabs-biggest-audience-victory-premiere-week-narrows-demo-gap-991039) at the top of the late night ratings.


End file.
